


Giving In

by Rhoda_Writes



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bisexual Clara Oswin Oswald, Episode: s07e06 The Snowmen, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Post-Season/Series 10, Season/Series 10 Spoilers, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 14:24:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15753525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhoda_Writes/pseuds/Rhoda_Writes
Summary: What if the Doctor and Clara's adventure in "The Snowmen" wasn't at the beginning of her timeline, but the end?





	Giving In

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not quite caught up through the end of Series 10 yet, so I hope this still makes sense. Thanks to MindYourMind for beta-ing!

The last time I saw the Doctor was the first time he saw me. At least, properly, face-to-face. He had heard my voice before, but that was all. But by then, I'd had years. You'd think he might've remembered it could go that way, being a time traveller and all, but that's the Doctor for you.

Mind you, it's not like I was waiting for him. After the raven, I woke up in another life, and another time. It was a surprise, and it took me a while to remember who I really was. When I'd jumped into the timestream, everything had flown together at once, but this was different. I was born. I grew up. I found work as a barmaid, and as a governess, in Victorian London. It was nothing special, but it was a life. My life. And I was basically happy, apart from the burr in my mind that wouldn't let me forget all those years with the Doctor.

Then one Christmas, it snowed.

Keep in mind the snow was hardly the first bit of strangeness I'd seen in London. Danger was never far, whether from killers in dark alleys, or monsters from other worlds. I suppose Vastra, Jenny, and Strax took care of most of it. I would've liked to see them, but they didn't know me then.

But one day, finally, the Doctor came down from his cloud. I didn't recognize him at first. It had been so long, and we were both so different. He'd even been wearing a different face the last time I'd seen him. Now he was back to the overgrown schoolboy, in a patchy overcoat and a threadbare stovepipe hat, and funny round glasses. He walked past me without even stopping, until I pointed out the snowman.

He paused, came back, and took a closer look. He started babbling about "memory snow" and I told him that was silly.

"What's wrong with silly?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said. "Still talking to you, ain't I?"

Then he looked at me. Really looked, and he smiled. "What's your name?"

I told him. It wasn't until he repeated it back to me that I finally caught onto who he was. My name, in his voice--how many times had I heard it by then? A hundred? A thousand? "My Clara," he called me. Not yet, but he would one day.

But there was something wrong. His voice was softer, melancholy somehow. The voice of a man who had lost too much, and wanted to forget.

I followed him. I didn't dare hope he would remember me, but I needed to see what he'd been doing with himself here in Victorian London. He slipped into shadows and between buildings, and pulled a ladder out of the sky. I followed him up, and knocked on the door of the big, blue box I hadn't seen in so many years. Still, I didn't have the nerve to talk to him properly. Not just yet.

The whole adventure was a bit mad--mad and wonderful, as they always were. I loved it. How couldn't I? Here was this ancient hero who had exiled himself from the universe and would only show up to help at the behest of a fantastically tricky one-word test, that no one had passed until me. Vastra never told me what was so significant about the word "Pond." I never got the chance to ask. But he came down.

After that, he was back to his old self again. It was remarkable, the way he changed after that first chance meeting outside the pub. Like a light had been rekindled inside him. It would have been easy to write off his excitement and vivacity to the fact that there was a mystery to solve, but it was more than that.

I kissed him. I didn't realize I was going to do it until it happened. He said, "Who says I like you?" and then I snatched his face in both hands and pulled him down to my lips. It left him flustered and breathless. That was a new face again, one I hadn't seen before. It took everything I had not to laugh. He straightened his spine, straightened his bow tie, and scampered off. And yet, even then he was so beautiful.

Besides, what if I never got another chance? Who knew what would happen next? I assumed he'd fly away after solving the riddle of the snowmen. And in a way, he did.

But first, something wonderful--something impossible--happened.

I knew he brought the umbrella for me. He was tall enough to reach the ladder from the roof without it, and I told him so. The funny thing was, he waited for me. A homicidal ice governess impersonating Mr. Punch was clawing her way towards us, and he still waited for me. It took me by surprise, seeing him put his faith in me--to his eyes, a near stranger--after pushing and lying and ordering so many times before. As much as I cared for him, that trust had always eluded us, just a hair out of reach.

But not that night. The way he looked at me then, when he let me inside the TARDIS again, was so open and tender. I had wanted so much for him to look at me like that, before it got complicated and everything went wrong. He pressed the key into my hand and folded my fingers around it.

My heart stopped. "What is this?" I asked.

He smiled. "Me. Giving in."

All this time, all the years we'd been together, I always thought he kept me close just out of curiosity. His "impossible girl." Emma Grayling even warned me not to get too close to him, that he had a "sliver of ice in his heart."

Maybe that was all true. For a time. But here and now, in Victorian London, inside a blue box on top of a cloud, he didn't see me as a puzzle that he couldn't resist solving. I searched his face for a hint of recognition, but there wasn't any. He only saw . . . me. Clara Oswald. And he was asking me to come away with him.

I asked why---Why me? Why now? Why had he sequestered himself up here until the moment I had found him again?--hopeless to put everything in my heart into words.

"I never know why," he said. "I only know who."

It was too much. My cheeks burned as tears bloomed and shed, and I didn't know why I couldn't stop crying. That first day I'd met him--from my point of view, I mean--when he turned up on my doorstep dressed as a monk and babbling about the WiFi, had never made sense before. He'd been delighted, practically bouncing with joy, when I opened the door. His eyes sparkled when he saw me, and he whispered my name like a prayer.

How long had he searched for me? How many times had he drifted past me, just a breath too far in time in space to touch? And, the scariest question, how long did we have until this adventure ran out?

Not long at all. I saw his face collapse in agony just a moment before icy arms looped around my waist and wrenched me backward.

I allowed myself to hope, just a little. A brief dream that we could start over, in this century, and do it right this time. I should have remembered. He had told me in our other life how this story ended. I woke up with my back broken and my organs failing. He stayed with me until the end. He kissed my cheek and my hands, promising a miracle he couldn't deliver. There were worse ways to die. When I closed my eyes, it was the last time I ever saw him.

# # #

Of course, I only mean that literally. I never saw _him_ again.

One day, thousands of years later, on a small satellite world not far from the Dog Star, I was making a new life yet again, this time as a traveling artisan. Sweet rolls, breads, cakes, jams, and of course, soufflés, were my specialities. No matter the time or the planet, everyone has to eat.

A blond woman, by appearances just a little older than me, swept up to my stall. She breathed in deep and said, "Oh, it smells like heaven!" There was something familiar about the way she picked and pawed over the bread and pastry laid out on my table, hands fluttering like leaves, too excited to stay in one place for long. And then there was her clashing wardrobe, with more layers of brightly colored fabric than I'd ever seen on a single person.

"Aren't you coming?" called a voice from deeper into the market square. "The Raptor's Ballet is starting in less than a minute. I want to get good seats."

"Yes of course, but we need snacks, don't we?" answered the blonde. "What do you use for money here?" she asked me. "I'm still on bits of brown twine and haven't had a chance to exchange them yet. Long story."

Seized by an impulse I didn't fully understand, I said, "On the house. Special today only for new visitors."

"Excellent!" Then immediately, she set down a covered raisin cake she was examining and eyed me shrewdly. "No, hold on, wait a minute: special for new visitors, really? Is that true, or did you just make it up?"

I shrugged. "It's my market stall. It's true if I say so." I was already boxing up one of the soufflés without even asking. Somehow I knew it was what she wanted.

"But why?"

"Never know why. I only know who."

I didn't mean to say it. But when I pressed the package into her hands, our eyes met. Old eyes, ancient eyes, and bright as the supernova at end of every star. And she knew me. In that moment, she _knew_. And so did I.

"What did you say?" she asked, her voice just above a whisper.

I could feel tears building in the back of my throat, and this time, I understood. I was happy. Actually, properly happy. The universe, tangled up and confusing as it was, had decided to give us another chance.

The voice of her friend emerged from the crowd again: "Doctor, come on!"

Hearing that name pricked my heart open. Before hearing it, I was still too afraid to believe she was real.

"I'm right behind you," she called back, but didn't take her eyes off me. Her hands were folded around mine, cradling the fist-sized pastry box neither of us could seem to let go. She shook her head in wonder. "Impossible girl," she murmured.

I only smiled. "Now," I said, voice trembling, "you eat that while it's still hot. It took me a long time to get the recipe right. But now it's--"

"--perfect." She laughed. "I know."

When she finally disappeared into the crowd, I wasn't sad. I knew our story wasn't over yet. Because after all the long, hard years I've put into wandering, and wondering at, this universe, the most important thing I've learned is this: Not everything ends. Not love. Not always.

The End.


End file.
